Thank you all for your contributions to this topic, but it is time to close it.
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The original question was answered by @pamubay. The default behavior was changed here. The upstream issue has since been resolved, so if you feel strongly about the default behavior, please raise an issue here.
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The minifier appears to do exactly what it is supposed to do:
- strip unnecessary whitespace and otherwise collapse it to one space (or newline if it originally contained a newline)
If you feel strongly that consuming a byte with a space is better than consuming a byte with a newline, raise an issue here.